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A play about attendees at a Silent Retreat? What would that look/sound like? What are the chances of my reading the article below a day before attending a week long Zen retreat conducted in silence? Reading about art is not the same as experiencing it first hand, but I think you will find this article/ interview of interest. It is about the playwright Bess Wohl and her play “Small Mouth Sounds”. Most of my blog posts have to do with the interconnection between the visual or performing arts but I’ve not written much about the dramatic arts. I haven’t seen the play but I’m guessing my experience of silence over the next week will be affected by this article.

A minute of silence onstage feels like an eternity. So imagine what 100 minutes of silence would feel like. That’s exactly what playwright Bess Wohl did when she set out to write “Small Mouth Sounds,” which makes its Los Angeles-area debut at the Broad Stage on Thursday.

Set at a silence retreat in the woods, the play explores the lives of six people as they struggle to connect, and find inner peace, without uttering a word. The play has a few moments of speech, but the only substantial dialogue comes from the person running the retreat — a bodiless voice offstage.

For a writer who admits to relying on witty banter for some of her best work, the play proved a dramatic challenge and a creative triumph for Wohl and director Rachel Chavkin, the latter fresh off the raves she earned on Broadway for her inventive “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.”

Cherene Snow and Connor Barrett in “Small Mouth Sounds,” which comes to the Broad Stage in January. (T Charles Erickson)

As part of a national tour that will take “Small Mouth Sounds” to Dallas, Miami and Philadelphia, Wohl talked with The Times about her process and explained why silence is sometimes louder than words.

What made you want to write this play?

The idea came when I was on a silence retreat. I had been — I wouldn’t say dragged — but encouraged to come by a close friend. I didn’t realize we were going to be in silence. I thought it was going to be a girls bonding weekend. I brought snacks and wine.

But on the first night of silence I simultaneously realized, “Wow, this might be fertile ground for a play.” I had this impulse based on observing other people and thinking they would be great characters to explore, but I didn’t know anything about them because I hadn’t spoken to them.

So the whole thing became this projection of my fantasy about who they might be. I got really interested in the way we project fantasy on each other all the time, and I was interested in engaging the audience in that process.

Did you do more research?

I went back to a bunch of silence retreats. I went to one with my mom, but we only lasted about halfway through. I just got deeper and deeper into this idea. There was a part of me that really enjoyed the perversity of trying to make a play where people don’t speak, and what that would be like. It was all a great experiment.

I started it in 2012, and there were series of workshops with actors. I wrote a bunch of drafts. My first draft, I couldn’t help myself and all the characters immediately started talking and breaking the rules. Then in the second draft nobody spoke ever, and that felt kind of false. What I ended up finding was balance.

I did a lot of workshopping — putting the play in front of groups of 20 or 30 people, so I could understand what information they needed to follow the plot. There was lots of testing with other people, which was part of the joy of a silent play. You have to see it in bodies and spaces.

What does the script look like?

The beginning is about 12 pages of character descriptions. I felt if I were going to ask actors to play characters that barely spoke, I had to give them enormous backstories to ground them. My hope is that the audience can intuit that there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. After that there’s about 40 pages of stage direction, and there are some monologues in the play. The other piece of perversity is that the character who speaks the most is never seen in the play.

I was interested in creating these obstacles in both directions. What is it like to hear and not see, and vice versa.

What did you learn about yourself in the process?

I realized how hard it is for me to personally sit in silence. The play begins in silence. You watch someone in silence for a full minute, which onstage feels like a very long time. So when I watch I go through a whole arc of anticipation and agony. Part of the project is teaching myself to slow down and sit in silence with something I made. As a playwright it’s hard to evaluate your work because the voices in your head are so loud. In part I was trying to quiet those voices.

I always think any kind of change or growth is jagged — but I definitely have moments now when I can access the quiet I didn’t have before. And then a minute later the voices are back.

How did you hook up with Rachel Chavkin to direct?

I got so lucky with Rachel. We had a coffee, and she had read the play and came to the first meeting with such a clear vision of what she wanted the audience to feel by the end of the play. She wanted them to feel as if they had been at a silence retreat. She said they should leave the theater in a different metabolic state than they came in with.

How would you describe the plot?

It’s tricky to put it into one sort of nugget because every time I watch the play, I see it in a different way depending on whatever I’m going through in my life. What’s interesting about a silent play is that the audience brings a lot of perspective. The audience can project their own experiences and ideas onto the characters.

The play is a lot about the question of inner peace. A character asks whether peacefulness is a worthy goal right now given the chaos of the world. He says maybe we shouldn’t be at peace in a world that has so much difficulty.

How do you feel about the cast that will be performing at the Broad Stage?

I have the greatest respect for this company of actors. Part of what’s hard about this play as an actor is that it’s impossible to perform without being fully present, because there’s no dialogue to coast on. You can’t be saying the words while thinking about the hamburger you’re going to eat at the bar afterwards. Being present is all there is.

Do you think the show will play differently in L.A. than in New York?

I’m really excited to see it in Los Angeles. L.A. has a great community of spiritual seekers and yoga practitioners and people who have been on a lot of these retreats. I wanted to make something accessible whether you’d been on a million retreats or had no idea what one was about.

I’m hoping that people in L.A. can see themselves and laugh a little bit and also engage with the ideas.

What’s next for “Small Mouth Sounds”?

This play is going to continue to tour, and that will be really fun to keep sharing it with people around the country. When I first started this play — as my little experiment, will people engage with this, will people fall asleep — I never imagined it would be a multi-city tour. It was such a tiny, weird idea. We had auditions where we just had actors come in and sit in silence and leave.

What’s next for you?

I have a new play that I’ve been working on that tries to look at questions surrounding climate change. I’ve been working on it for years and am figuring out how to tackle it. Hopefully there will still be a planet next season.

Below is a link to my first rap performance in response to my Shuso Koan (see: http://artandzentoday.com/?p=4380 ). There are three pieces of information that might make my rap a bit more meaningful. The first is that, following Zen tradition, the Shuso Hossen ceremony started off with my teacher handing me a Shippei; a staff that is a symbol of a Zen master’s authority. I held the Shippei before the audience and spoke the following worlds:

“This is a 3 foot long black snake. A long time ago it had become a konpura flower on Mt Gudrakuta, and on Mt. Shorin it had become plum blossom. Sometimes it transforms into a dragon and swallows heaven and earth. Sometimes it transforms into a diamond sword with freedom to kill and give life. Right now, in accord with the order of my teacher, it lies in my hands. I feel like a mosquito trying to bite an iron bull. However, being assigned as head trainee, I have to fulfill my duties”.

Secondly, in a series of lectures leading up to the Shuso Hossen Ceremony, I explored the nature and function of Zen ritual. I spent a great deal of time in these lectures discussing an article entitled “Rituals” by Robert Sharf. The author suggests that it is useful to view rituals as a form of transubstantiation where the participants understand that many aspects of their ritual activities are a form of play and yet can be taken seriously. He says that just as a child who uses a stick to represent a horse when playing cowboys understands that the stick is not really a horse, ritual participants act “as if” certain things are true or real, while knowing that it is only “as if”. The most common example of this is the idea in communion that the wine offered by the priest is the blood of Christ. I suggested, in my lectures, that engaging in the “as ifness” of rituals can be a way of learning to remain engaged in everyday life while not being attached (i.e. in society by not of society). To see two earlier posts on “transubstantiation”, type that term in the Search Box on the right and hit “enter” on your computer.

The third item that might be helpful to look at before watching the video is a poem written by Jake Roshi several years ago and published on this site in an article titled “Poems and Images of Five Vista Zen Center Artists” (see: http://artandzentoday.com/?p=3541 ). The poem is not long but it is laid out in a visually interesting way and so you have to scroll down a bit to get to the video.

Here is another Art and Zen Today Exclusive; a video of singer Mo King b’sperformance at the Grammys that was deleted because he was supposedly not well received by the audience.

You may never have heard of Mo King b and that suits the producers of the Grammy Awards just fine.Mo King b’s music was showcased in an earlier video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCiVNF-SfPA ) a couple of years ago and I was shocked to learn that his performance at this year’s Awards was deleted from the tape feed at the last moment.According to the producers Mo’s performance did not air because “Mo King’s performance was way too experimental and inaccessible for the Grammy audience”.Paradoxically, Gilbert Mothworthy, of the Dronington Post wrote “b’s music was shockingly imitative and unoriginal causing many people in the theater that night to fall into an altered state of consciousness”.Click on the link below for this never before seen video of King’s short performance. For best results listen in stereo, preferably using headphones.

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This post starts off with a short video I took several weeks ago at the Coyote Bar and Grill in Carlsbad, which is where my wife and like to go dancing. On this night, one of my favorite singers (Valerie Pierce) was singing one of my favorite tunes (“This is How We Do It”) with one of my favorite local bands (SmokeStaxx). Before I get into my usual pontification, I’d suggest that you watch the video now.Unfortunately, I was not quick enough to capture the whole song, but I got the best part.

I had talked briefly with Valerie after she had performed this rap at an earlier date.I asked whether she would be OK with me recording her the next time they did this tune and she said “yes”. I also asked her what her state of mind was while she was performing that night.Her answer was ” I don’t know where I went”. (Valerie was recently named “#1 Ranking New Jazz Artist in the Hollywood Talent Quest”. See more at ValeriePierce.com)

The idea of being somewhere else (or not being one’s self) is common among musicians when trying to describe their state of mind while improvising.The same language is common among those witnessing such performances (e.g. “like he’s gone, man”or “He’s possessed”).(see Improvization in Jazz and Zen).I would suggest that such performances are good examples of what Dr.Mihaly Csikszentimaihalyi calls the “flow experience” where the experiencer“forgets the conceptual self” and loses a sense of time.(See To Know Flow or No Flow?).The idea of being “far out” was also the topic of an earlier blog “The thin line between”and “aliens”

While it is common to refer to such performancer as not being here, in other posts (for instance“The Artist Is Present”, I also suggest that the performer is totally here in the present in the moment.The language we use to describe and try to understand these kinds of experiences could, at first blush, be seen as contradictory.Is the performer “gone” or is she “totally here in the present moment?Is the performer “far out” or “present”. The problem lies in trying to describe human experiences that lie outside the commonplace or “normal”These kinds of experiences are simply not easy to describe in words because they involve a dropping away of the usual thought processes (predominately “left brain” processes) that we use for making distinctions and understanding what is happening.As I have shown before, these are the very kinds of experiences that spawn creativity (See “Sudden Insight and Creativity“)

As I look at Valerie in this video, I see both someone who is “gone” and “fully present”.She is gone in the sense that she is not exactly her usual self, but she is present in that she is responding immediately and quickly to what is going on around her; making split-second decisions that can only occur when one is fully focused in the present moment.

I was talking with my brother recently about all of this and he said that when he is improvising (he is a jazz saxaphonist) the audience can tell when he is in the state of being Gone/Present and they let him know by their response.When someone is in this state (whether a performer or not) they have a “Presence”. (see Performer-Audience Communication” ).How is this “presence” communicated?I would suggest that it is conveyed as much visually as through sound.I have played drums while my brother is improvising and I can always tell when he is “into it”; it is conveyed by facial expressions and various other forms of body language (try watching the video of Valerie again, with your volume turned down).

Monk and Diz

There is reason to believe that this is true of performers in the relatively subdued and staid classical music. I just read about some surprising research that seems consistent with this idea.Chia-Jung Tsay is both a classical pianist and a psychologist who conducted a study where she showed both amateur and professional musicians clips from classical-music competitions. She asked her volunteers to guess the winners.But, some saw videos with recording, some listed only to audio and others watched silent videos.What she found is that it was only in the silent videos, the videos without any sound, that participants were best able to identify the actual winners.

My interpretation of Tsay’s results is that the “presence” of the winners was largely conveyed visually.Interestingly, Ellen Langer’s studies on creativity and mindfulness also suggest that “presence” may be conveyed from artist to viewer even when the artist is not physically present.In a series of experiments where volunteers were either encouraged to create art pieces mindfully or allowed to create with no intervention, she found that artist who created more mindfully were judged to be more “authentic or charismatic based on viewers perceptions of their work.Now “presence” is one of those words that are difficult to define but I think that “authenticity’ and “charisma” are elements of what we generally mean when using the term.

What Langer calls the “authenticity” and “charisma”, (which can be seen as part of “presence”) of painters can be conveyed to viewers through what they see on the canvas.Generally, I would say, we are drawn to art of all types when it conveys the presence of the artist, even if the artist is not physically present.

In the most general sense “presence” means that others are impressed by a person”s appearance and manner.But, as I discussed above, the term often implies the existence of something or someone not physically present.Different people will have different interpretations of the “something” or “someone” but I think the quote from Wikihow below best sums up my position:

“In some spiritual circles, presence and spirit are one in the same. Meditation, contemplation, dance, chant, all seek to connect with something deeper. Presence is the result of getting in contact with your deeper self.”

Even the nature of “your deeper self” can be debated but I would suggest that this is what is often referred to in the Zen literature as “realizing one’s Buddha nature”.That is, it is in our nature to be “present/awake/alive” but for most people, this must be realized through practice. The term “Buddha nature” is one of those that can be difficult to grasp but I think that author William Westney may provide some insight into it’s meaning.

Westney, author of “The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self” suggests that if you watch 3 year olds engaging with music you get a sense of the inherent joy that can be evoked from playing and listening to music. Artists with “presence”, I would suggest, allow the enthusiasm and involvement of the child to shine through their performances. To use Westney’s worlds: ..”there is total involvement, every fiber, sinew and nerve-ending alter to the musical impulse…” (pg. 17). This is what I see when watching the video of Valerie.

Westney suggests that this inherent joy, in most cases, is sufficated by lessons and other adult demands until most of us forget or deny it and we become convinced that we do not have the talent to either perform or fully listen music (see “Ellen Langer on “The Talent Myth).

Westney goes on to say:

“The energized, fluid creativity of play, for example is a childhood treasure that is often lost later. People happily forget themselves when they are absorbed in play, and at the same time they are acutely aware” (p. 22). In other words they are simultaneously “there” and “here”. Dale Wright’s deconstruction of the Buddhist Six Perfections, designed to provide students with the “goals” of practice suggests that a sense of joy is a key element of spiritual practice as well. It makes sense to me that this joy would develop as one breaks through the conditioning that has stiffled the joyousness of childhood. It seems to me that what Westney is describing as the three year old’s natural inclination to play and musicality is very similar to “Buddha nature” in that both are inherent and both usually need to be re-discovered or realized in later life.

From all accounts it appears that the historic Buddha, after years of spiritual practice, had a presence that others could acknowledge and were drawn to.At the same time I would guess that had Buddha been around during the early days of jazz, he would certainly have been seen as “real gone”.The Heart Sutra, seen as one of the most important of Buddha’s teachings ends withthe phrases “gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha” which is translated as “ gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond“.Gone, as gone beyond ordinary egjo-based consciousness and suffering.From what I can tell, Buddha conveyed his “goneness” to those he met but was also very much present; present enough to effectively convey his teaching, organize an order of monks to succeed him and become engaged in civil society.According to the Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera, “The Buddha had gone beyond all worldly affairs, but still gave advice on good government” (http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/whatbudbeliev/229.htm)

So, the historic Buddha was gone but not gone.Neither “here” or “there”.Interestingly Buddha uses terms similar to this in the following quote attributed to him:

When for you there is only the seen in the seen, only the heard in the heard, only the sensed in the sensed, only the cognized in the cognized, then you will not be reckoned by it. When you are not reckoned by it, you will not be in it. When you are not in it, you will be neither “here” nor “there” nor between the two.

This, just this, is the end of suffering.

Buddha Gautama (563-483 BC)

When I am dancing to a great band like Smokestaxx or watching/listening to a great performer like Valerie Pierce, I am often temporarily “neither here nor there” and I get at least a taste of what it might be like to realize my “Buddha Nature”. Does Booty Shaking = Buddha Nature ? I’m not sure but I intend to keep up my booty shaking practice and I’ll let you know when I find out.

A customer approaches a small table set up among the produce booths at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market.A small sign on the table reads:

Poem Store

Your Subject, Your Price

Yes

The poet, who sits behind the table asks her customer for a topic and is told “Since Wednesday”.In about 3 minutes she types and then reads the following poem to her customer:

Time has moved along

slowly, inching with heat

and asking us to understand

what can happen in a single

day, in the rise of a week…..

The customer, with tears in his eyes tells the poet: “So Martha started chemo on Wednesday” and the poet simply nods.

This above exchange was described in a recent article by Deborah Netburn in the LA Times titled “Poems While You Wait”.The article focuses on the unusual occupation/practice of a poet by the name of Jacqueline Suskin.Jacqueline can be found most days set up at a small booths at Farmer’s markets and similar events . The payment is up to the customers but most pay around $5 for their poem. Suskin always asks if she can read her poem because she considers poetry to be an “oral art”. Some people try to think up far out topics but most ask for a poem that somehow relates to current events in their lives.She has a lot of repeat customers and newcomers are usually surprised at how relevant and poignant their personal poems turn out..

Jacqueline is quoted as saying: “The thing I like about Poem Store is that it is not about me.I’m not thinking about myself. I’m writing about my interaction with a person, and I want to give them something that is just theirs.”

Because she understands that her customers are wanting to buyvegetables and get right home, she works very quickly.. According to Jacqueline: “Part of the exercise is to get down immediately what comes to me.They are like little mantras, little prayers that get handed out”.

Jacqueline thinks that people generally ask for poems that might provide them help with or insight into personal problems:“They want hope, or confidence, or they just need someone to see who they are.. Half the time I feel like I am a therapist or a psychic”.

The poet doesn’t know how she manages to write poems so quickly.“There is just this blurry area there.There is no answers to how I can do it so quickly, so I don’t question it”. She goes on to say, however that it is exhausting work:“This is the most physically draining thing I’ve ever done in my life.When I’m done writing poems for four hours for people I don’t know, I’m like a zombie.My brain is mush”.

Those of you who have been reading my past blogs, can probably see why I was intrigued by this article.The quickness of her responses to requests for poems resembles the improvisational skills of jazz musicians and the storied shenanigans of traditional Zenmasters (seeYEAH MAN: IMPROVISATION IN JAZZ, COMEDY AND ZEN) ).Although Jacqueline seems to be making a living writing poems, there is a selfless element to what she does. One of the elements of the Buddhist, Eightfold Path is right livelihood, which essentially means that a practioner should make a living in a job that is consistent with Buddhist ethics and ideals.Certainly, Suskin’s Poem Store seems to be an example of this.

Jacqueline Suskin’s interactions with the public also remind me a lot of Marina Abramovic’s performance piece at MOMA where she sat staring into the eyes of museum visitors during opening hours for a month.In a post called “The Artist is Present”, I admired the Zen-like quality of Abramovic’s art.Both Marina and Jacqueline attest to the strain of having to “be present” with strangers for hours on end, but both also seem to draw an immense degree of satisfaction from their actions.

I think many artists become depressed or cynical because they feel that the public does not appreciate their creativity to the degree that they would wish for.They suffer alone and are not able to feel that they can find a way to use their creative skills to benefit others.It seems that Jacqueline has found a unique means for accomplishing this, while still supporting herself doing the thing she loves to do..I wonder whether the Poem Store concept, mightbe something that other artists could, with some creative “tweaking”, utilize to energize their own practices?I’d love to hear reactions from some of my artist readers (or anyone else for that matter) about their take on this article.To read the original article, use the following address:

http://www.latimes.com/includes/sectionfronts/A1.pdf

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In two previous posts, I expounded and expanded upon Peter Hershock’s use of jazz improvisation as a metaphor for what he calls the “social virtuosity” that can be developed through many years of practicing Zen. He seems to be trying to paint a picture of the phenomenon called “enlightenment” or “awakening” that counters the widespread notion that these concepts refer to a purely personal or individual achievement. As you will recall, Hershock makes the case that in jazz, as well as everyday life, this improvisational virtuosity has a social as well as a personal dimension. I see this improvisational “letting go” as something that is “catchy” and “shareable” and so we all, with practice, can help each other “let go”. I want to follow up with this idea in the next couple of posts because it is one that is hard for most of us to fathom. It runs counter to our basic assumptions about who or what we are and why we might practice a spiritual discipline. Frankly, I want to work through this material as I think it may be helpful for me in clarifying what Zen practice is all about. If you haven’t already, I suggest you go back and read the following before proceeding with this post as it builds on that earlier material.( GREAT UNEXPECATIONS: JAZZ/ZEN IMPROVISATION, JAZZ/ZEN IMPROVISATION: SOCIAL VIRTUOSITY AND PRACTICE )

To begin, let us revisit the work of Lehrer (Imagine: How Creativity Works) which provided a jumping off point for my very first posts on Art And Zen Today. Dealing with jazz improvisation as a form of creative expression, Lehrer cites several studies where scientists were able to observe brain activity while musicians improvised. One of the findings is that while improvising the brains of the musicians showed “a surge of activity in the medial prefontal cortex, an area at the front of the brain associated with self-expression.'” ( p.90) This was to be expected, but they also found shifts in the part of the brain associated with impulse control. When improvising, as opposed to playing a familiar melody, “the musicians were inhibiting their inhibitions, slipping off those mental hand cuffs.” (p.91). For Lehrer, this is another example of situations where creativity is associated with a process of “letting go”, especially regarding letting go of thoughts about what other people may think about what you are doing.

Lehrer argues that the “letting go” process can be learned and he provides some insight into how this can occur by describing what goes on in classes in “Comedic Improv” at the Second City training center. First Lehrer observed that this kind of training involved playing children’s games and just generally acting like kids on clue. He quotes Andy Cobb, one of the instructors:

“it’s about putting people in a state of mind where they’re going to say the first thing that pops into their head, even if it seems silly or stupid. Because that inner voice, that voice telling you not to do something –that’s the voice that kills improv” (p. 102)

Secondly, says Lehrer, the prospective actors “must become aware of everything that is happening on stage…….. “Comic improv, after all, is an ensemble performance: every joke is built on the line that came before.” ( p.103) So after they learn to stop worrying about saying the wrong thing, they begin practicing a technique called ‘Yes, and…..’ . The basic premise is simple: When performing together, improvisers can never question what came before. The need to instantly agree –that’s the “yes” part — and then start setting up the next joke. ” (p.103)

Writing about the same phenomenon, Susan Murphy, the author of Upside Down Zen, provides an example of this process from a book called Improv by Keith Johnstone. Writing about Johnstone’s book, Murphy says:

“….. in one of his examples, the first actor might say, “Ohh!’. and clutch their leg; the second actor might say, ‘Oh my god’, there something wrong with your leg!’ The first actor says, ‘yes, I’ve got a pain in my leg’. The second one says, ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to remove it.’ The first actor then says, ‘Oh, don’t take my leg, I’m rather attached to it.’ Now at that point it’s starting to go dead. ‘No’ has been said; the offer has not been caught. But how about the second time? It goes through the same moves. ‘O, my leg!’ ‘Oh no, not your leg, I’ll have to remove it’ and the second actor says ‘But that’s the leg you took last time!’ So the first actor says, ‘Oh, this is serious’ The second actors says, ‘not…woodworm?’ And so it rolls. The play is alive because all offers are being accepted.’ (pg. 50)

When we are fully present/awake/alive, not only are we less concerned with how others are evaluating us but simultaneously more fully aware of how we are a part of a larger social unit that is mutually creating whatever is to happen next. As mentioned in the earlier posts, our part in any social improvisational “performance” may, at first glance seem rather insignificant. But as Murphy shows, such performances can struggle or die if we either say “no” or signify “no” through our demeanor. So, the key to any successful joint improvisational performance is for all involved to express an attitude of “yes”. I recall the following two incidents when I think about the “power of yes”

I played drums in bands while in high school and college but didn’t play for about 25 years after that. Shortly after I started playing drums again as an adult, I had the chance to sit in with a band consisting of very accomplished musicians and accepted the invitation with some trepidation. I was especially intimidated by the leader who played the trumpet. Mid-way into the song, he turned to me and indicated I should take a solo. For some reason, I found myself playing the solo striking the drums in a way that did not allow the sticks to bounce; producing a muffled sound instead of the usual resonant ring. I recall that once I started the solo, I conjectured that the leader would not like what I was doing. However, right after that thought, I heard him shout “yeah man”, which gave me “permission” to finish the solo with confidence following my instincts. After the song ended , he looked at me briefly and said “fresh!”.

After the incident described above I was motivated to find a jazz group in Philadelphia to play with full time. One of the members of the band was a rhythm guitarist who I and the others judged as not being a good as the rest of the band. During one of our performances, maybe a year after I joined the band, he was taking a solo and I found myself being much more attuned than usual to what he was playing; almost as if he and I were one musician. What was coming from this guy’s guitar was leaps and bounds beyond anything I had heard him play before. As he continued, I opened my eyes, (I usually close them when fully absorbed in what is happening) and saw that all the other members were watching him intently and exchanging glances as if to say “what’s going on here?”. As the guitarist’s solo continued, the others began to utter “yeah man” type of responses and when it was their turn to solo each seemed to perform at a level beyond their usual. Something happened that night, not just at the individual level, but at the group level as well. After that, due to the “power of “yeah man”, we were a better, freer and more cohesive band than we were before.

I think something like this can happen in a variety of everyday situations and plan to explore further how this may work in the next post. While jazz and comedic improvisation is a useful metaphor for understanding the kind of every day “social viruosity” that can stem from Zen practice, they are not the same. So, I also plan to comment on the differences. At least that is the plan. But, who knows? I’m just making this up as I go along. Improvisation or lack of focus????? In the meantime, don’t feel that you have to say “yeah man” to every proposal or opportunity that presents itself. Use common sense and take a look at the movie ” Yes Man” starring Jim Carrey.

In the last post “Know Flow or No Flow?”, I looked at the characteristics of what is called the “flow experience” and equated it with being fully “present-alive-awake”. Both in the arts and in various spiritual traditions, “being fully present” is held out as a desirable goal. As I said in that post, we all know what it is like to flow and be in the present moment. However, most of us can be in the present moment only when we are in certain situations, carrying out specific activities. Since we have all had some experiences of being present-alive-awake, we all have the capacity to be this way more often and in a broader range of situations in our lives. Whether we are talking about the conventional arts or the “spiritual arts”, I believe this is a process of increasing one’s “creativity”. This and several future posts will look at this creative process.

Most people seek out those activities or situations where they flow and avoid those where they don’t. So a person who flows while skiing, for example, may become a “skier” meaning that he or she will try to ski as much as possible. There is nothing inherently wrong with this but it can lead an unbalanced life organized around one’s flow activities.

A person who can only be present while, skiing, is likely to become a “ski fanatic” and will spend enormous time and energy trying to repeat the feeling of past skiing-flow experiences. As they gets more proficient , they will need to find more and more challenging slopes to avoid boredom and experience flow. Such a skiing fanatic is likely to be miserable when he or she is not skiing and spend much of their time dreaming about past skiing experiences as well as fantasizing about future experiences. This means, that when they are not skiing they are no where close to being “in the moment”.

More importantly, they are not likely to develop other skills or interests that can provide the “fun” found in skiing, which makes them all the more “addicted” to skiing. In other words, they suffer when they are not skiing and this fuels even greater need to ski. In addition, they are likely to make life miserable for those around them (e.g.. the “ski widow”).

thus are not dependent on any single one to experience flow. But, I do not think that such individuals are always “high” or “having fun” as the literature on flow might suggest. In the last post I found it useful to link the concept of “flow” to the concept of “being present-alive-awake”, but we need to be careful of taking this similarity too far.

Most have us are able to be fully present when we are in situations where we are having fun. But, I believe that it is also possible to be present in situations which are not characterized as being “fun”. We can do this, but usually we can we just don’t want to. There is plenty of evidence, for instance, that people can become fully present while experiencing physical pain or danger and become addicted. The “addiction” that some military people develop to combat and sadomasochistic relationships are a couple of extreme examples that come to mind. However, generally, in situations which we define as “not fun”, we are absorbed in our thoughts; thoughts of how to get out of that situation and thoughts about what we would rather be doing etc. In other words we are anything but “present”.

Marina Abramovic is not having "fun" in her piece "The Artist is Present".

But, it is not just these negative extremes that are likely to dampen our “presence”. Most of us, most of the time, are somewhere in-between having fun and non-fun and find these times to be anything but flow-inducing. I believe that this is where what Dr. C. calls the “autotelic personality” is able to be more present more often than the general population. They have the creative skills to define whatever situations they find themselves in ways that allow them to be “present-alive-awake”.

Creativity is basically the ability to look at things in a new way. This, I believe is what distinguishes what Dr. C. calls “autotelic personalities” from others. They have the capacity to redefine or reframe situations they face in ways that provide for a greater balance between the “perceived demands” and their “resources or skills” (see Know Flow or No Flow?).

The term “autotelic” refers to the process of doing something for it’s own sake, that is doing something because it is “intrinsically” rewarding rather than “extrinsically” rewarding. This suggests that the “autotelic personality” then is capable of being fully present in situations that they, according to their definition, (importantly, not others definitions) are able to find rewarding. This implies that such individuals are capable of casting off conventional understandings of situations and provide a personalized meaning of what is demanded and what is required to be “successful”. To me this is the essence of “creativity”.

The outcome may be a great piece of art or a solution to a societal problem but for the person in question the reward is being “present-alive-awake”. And, as I suggested in my post called “Performer-Audience Communication”, others can be positively affected by such creativity because it reminds them that they too can be “present-alive-awake”.

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A major focus in past posts has been the connection between being “present-alive-awake” and creativity in both art and spiritual practices. The fact that being “present-alive-awake” is so often held up as something to attain, implies that it is somehow beyond the grasp of us mortals. But, it that really true? Look at the description below and see if you can think of times when you have experienced something like this.

My mind isn’t wandering. I am not thinking of something

else. I am totally involved in what I am doing. My body feels

good. My concentration is like breathing; I never think of it.

Dr. C,

This description has been used in research looking into what Dr.Mihaly Csikszentimaihalyi calls the “flow experience”. According to Dr. C.’s research everyone has experienced “flow” (sometimes referred to as “being in the zone”) at some point; usually while doing something we find interesting, fun and challenging; (skiing, surfing, dancing or gardening are activities where flow is commonly experienced). Generally, during flow, we lose track of time and experience a “loss of reflective self-consciousness”. During such times our internal dialogue drops away and there is a heighten awareness of our somatic and sensory “selves”. In other words, we are temporarily “present-alive-awake” in such experiences.

What Dr. C calls the “flow experience” is best thought of as occurring along a continuum of experiences ranging from what Maslow called “peak experiences” to what Dr. C. later coined as “micro-flows” (e.g. during eating or having a pleasant conversation with someone). In other words, there are different degrees of being “present-alive-awake”. Also, Dr. C. recognized that some people (“autotelic personalities”) flow more often than others. What this means is that the objective situation is not the sole determinate of whether flow happens or not; more important is the mental set of the actors in these situations. And, this means that we all have the capacity to flow more often, in a wider variety of situations.

So what must a person bring to the situation in order to experience flow and be fully present? Dr. C.’s research provides some suggestions. Flow is most likely in situations where there is a balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and one’s own perceived skills. If one is overwhelmed by the demands of the activity, or is underwhelmed and bored by these demands, flow will not occur.

Now, think of some situations in your life where you have found yourself having thoughts that go something like this: “ This is too hard…. I can’t handle this” or “This is so boring…. I wish I were doing_______”. My guess is that you came up with more instances of this than you did of instances of where you have been fully in the present moment (i.e. flow). I would also guess, that if asked to, you could come up with a list of things that you could or should have done, internally and/or externally, to bring yourself more into the present moment in such situations.

We all have the capability to make such flow-inducing adjustments in our everyday situations, but frequently do not. Why? Because in the “heat of the moment”, so to speak, we forget that we have the capacity to “redefine” or “reframe” the situation. The solution? Remembering to Remember.

For the artist, this means remembering how one’s creative process works. Remembering that creative breakthroughs require going through boring and stressful periods of work, as Lehrer points out. It means “trusting the process” and remembering that fighting the process (wanting things to be other than they are) simply leads to unnecessary and unproductive suffering, thus forestalling creative breakthroughs. As one engages in artistic practice over time, this understanding gradually sets in, and one remembers to remember more often and thus is able to remain present at all stages of the creative process. And, as I’ve suggested in the last post, this presence can be communicated to one’s audience

The main practice for most spiritual seekers is meditation which, at the most basic level, is a means of learning to catch yourself as you drift into thoughts which take you out of the present moment. In other words it is learning to pay attention. By practicing this over and over again for years, the seeker gradually builds the “remembering muscles” that allow them to make adjustments, and exercise the flexibility (creativity) necessary to redefine his or her life, momentary situation by momentary situation.

Like the artist’s process, mentioned in the paragraph above, the spiritual practioner is also trying to eliminate unnecessary suffering; the self –created suffering that results from trying to make one’s life unfold in ways other than it is naturally unfolding. The spiritual seeker’s creativity is manifested in his ability to let go of expectations and allow his or her life to evolve in unscripted or unanticipated ways.

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Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. Lao Tzu

—————————————————————————————————————–I ended my post entitled “Buddha as a Performance Artist”? by wondering why both creative and spiritual artists seek creative freedom by counterintuitively placing more and more restrictions on themselves. By placing restrictions in one’s own path, the artist or spiritual seeker maintains the balance between challenges and skills that Dr. C. says is necessary to maintain flow. In order to be present, one must constantly redefine the situation in ways that keeps them challenged. One way of thinking about this is they create situations where they must adopt “beginner’s mind”.

Furthermore committment to self-imposed obstacles provides a concrete way of becoming aware of the unbalance in one’s life. By making committments or vows to act in a particular manner (see references to The Four Vow and Precepts in previous post) provides fertile ground for exploring the nature of the discrepancies between demands and one’s inner resources that are preventing one from being “present-alive-awake”. By making such commitments it is more difficult to get lost in throughts, dreams and fantasies of being anywhere other than where you are, doing what you are doing right now.

As a follow up to “Buddha as a Performance Artist?”, I was going to talk about the “flow experience” as a way of understanding why artists and spiritual seekers often impose restrictions on themselves. But I received a comment on that article from my Zen teacher that made me decide to abandon my agenda of writing about flow and “go with the flow” instead. Among other things, he wrote:

I would like to suggest that it might be as important to be a performance audience. (You can see the whole comment in Discussion #2 of the FORUM).

Now, frankly I’m not altogether sure what he meant by this but decided to not worry so much about the intended meaning and riff off of this statement just to see where it went. Notice that the emphasis on the word “PLAY” in the description of this blog If you listen in when young kids are playing together you will notice a lot of apparent “non-sequiturs” where one will pick up on what one says and responds spontaneously without being concerned whether he or she is sharing the same meanings as their playmates. In play, the objective is simply to keep the play going and to have fun, which is actually one of the defining charticteristic of “flow”. So what follows is my response to Jiyu’s Roshi’s comments even thought I’m not sure what he meant or intended.

In the FORUM PAGE of this blogsite there is a rather long discussion about the place of meaning in art. Artists may have a variety of meaningful intentions or inspirations in art (e.g. religious, political, comments on the art world etc.) or they may have none at all. However, it seems that the nature of communication in the arts is that we can never be sure that the artist’s meaning is shared isometrically by the audience (see examples in the FORUM). However, I do believe that when an artist in any field is creating in the present moment, that some portion of the audience will share this experience; that is, witnessing that art can bring a person into the present moment (i.e. to become more alive or awake, as suggested in the previous post). What is the difference between those that do and those that do not? All we can say is that those who do are willing and able to be transported, at least temporarily, into the present moment themselves. Something about viewing or hearing the art piece moves them to share that state of mind with the artist, but they must be open to that happening.

Remember this quote from Marina Abramovic regarding those who sat across from her during her performance at MOMA?

Some of them are really open and you feel this incredible pain…….when they are sitting in the front of me, it’s not about me any more. It’s very soon, that I’m just mirror of their own self.

Those who had profound experiences in Marina’s presence were, for whatever reason, open to having such experiences, while others in the exact same situation were not.

The historical Buddha, who according to Robert Thurman, was the consumate “performance artist” supposedly held up a white flower during one of his meetings with his disciples. One, Mahakasyapa, is said to have silently gazed at the flower and smiled. The Buddha then acknowledge that Mahakasyapa had attained enlightenment; in other words he shared with the Buddha a profound experience of being present, alive and awake.

Who knows why this happened to Mayakasyapa and no one else. Jiyu Roshi often says that the reason for Zen practice is to become enlightenment prone. By consistently and persistently carrying out activities (chiefly meditation) that can provide temporary experience of being fully present, one prepares oneself for more permanent shifts in this direction. Most likely Mahakasyapa had done the work necessary in order to be open to that shared experience with Buddha. The Zen literature is full of similar stories about such “awakenings”.

Likewise, by engaging in artistic practices and/or opening oneself to art that requires”presence”, one can begin to see through the cultural and mental patterns that keep us from experiencing this on an ongoing basis.

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. Walter Lippmann